This submarine propeller was made in Oakland in the 1940s. During World War II, the U.S. Navy installed a 7-mile net across the Golden Gate to keep enemy submarines out of San Francisco Bay.

Photo: Oakland Museum Of California

This submarine propeller was made in Oakland in the 1940s. During...

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In the Military section of the gallery, the impact of major military development and expansion is
demonstrated through historic objects and interactive media. A model of the USS Oakland, built at Hunters
Point in San Francisco during World War II, rests in front of signs directing soldiers and recruits stationed
on Angel Island and the Oakland Army Base. On the right is a photomural of Nike missiles, which were
embedded in the mountaintop of Angel Island during the cold war, poised to defend the Bay against enemy
planes. Image courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Oakland Museum Of California.

In the Military section of the gallery, the impact of major...

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A 16-foot photo mural of salt pond images by photographer Cris Benton line the back wall of the exhibition
space, with large salt crystals and a demonstration table where visitors can watch salt crystals forming in
brine from a Bay Area salt pond. Image courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Oakland Museum Of California.

A 16-foot photo mural of salt pond images by photographer Cris...

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Visitors get up close and personal with a large panoramic floor map,
searching for familiar places and landmarks. Geo-Stations on the exhibit floor
feature quirky historic and contemporary place-based stories from around
the Bay, such as the folk sculptures of the Emeryville mud flats, and the
buried ships hidden under downtown San Francisco. Photo: Shaun Roberts.
Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, Oakland Museum Of California.

Visitors get up close and personal with a large panoramic floor...

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In the 'Baylands' section of the Gallery, visitors can view a number of artifacts from the town of Drawbridge,
a now defunct duck-hunting settlement on the shores of the South Bay, in an interactive 'hunting shack'.
People came from all over during the turn of the 20th century to exploit the natural resources of this area,
which was later abandoned and today is one of the only ghost towns in the Bay Area. Photo: Shaun
Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, Oakland Museum Of California.

In the 'Baylands' section of the Gallery, visitors can view a...

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A photograph from Bill Owens' Suburbia series illustrates the changes brought by the new Bay Bridge when
it was completed in the 1930s; a digital map showing the change in population density throughout the Bay
Area further illuminates how the ease of automobile travel enabled development. Image courtesy of
Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Oakland Museum Of California

A photograph from Bill Owens' Suburbia series illustrates the...

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A mural, painted by Ann Thiermann in consultation with local tribal members
and historians, depicts an imagined scene in a Huchuin Ohlone village.
Elevated above the Bay s tides, the Shellmounds depicted in the mural
served as sacred burial sites, and as settings for homes and ceremonies.
Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, Oakland Museum Of California.

A mural, painted by Ann Thiermann in consultation with local tribal...

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The foghorn from the Bay Bridge is one of the many historic pieces provided courtesy of the California
Department of Transportation to commemorate the original Eastern span of the Bay Bridge in the exhibition
Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay. Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum
of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, Oakland Museum Of California

The foghorn from the Bay Bridge is one of the many historic pieces...

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The 'Bridges' exhibit in the 'Above' section of the Gallery includes a reproduced Bay Bridge tower, and a
projection including early stock footage of the original Bay Bridge construction. Behind, the original clock
and 'Stop Pay Toll' sign from the Bay Bridge, provided courtesy of the California Department of
Transportation. Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, Oakland Museum Of California

The 'Bridges' exhibit in the 'Above' section of the Gallery...

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Visitors take an aerial tour of the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay Area, with a video projection
commissioned by the Museum for its current exhibition, Above and Below:
Stories From Our Changing Bay and created by the Center for Land Use
Interpretation. The shore around the bay has been altered by humans and
nature alike, and viewing it from above can consider the Bay's history and
our relationship to our environment. Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of
California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, SR

Visitors take an aerial tour of the shoreline of the San Francisco...

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The Below section of the Gallery focuses on the ways humans have shaped and shifted the Bay, including
this illuminated display case, featuring bottles displaying the various contaminants found in the waters of
the San Francisco Bay. Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photo: Shaun Roberts, SR

The Below section of the Gallery focuses on the ways humans have...

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Clamshell dredges like this one scoop out material from the Bay's bottom. Much of that material is
deposited on the floor of the Bay, depicted in a simulated flyover projected in the exhibition Above and
Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay. Photo: Shaun Roberts. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of
California.

Whether we sail it toward America's Cup glory or traverse it on a daily commute, San Francisco Bay has the power to stop us in our tracks with its sheer beauty - or by nagging necessity, as when the Bay Bridge shutters for its makeover or BART grinds to a halt.

If those tides could talk, what sort of tales would gush forth?

Stories of shoot-'em-ups - past, present or never to be - might play a part, as Senior Curator of History Louise Pubols found while working on the Oakland Museum's multidisciplinary exhibition, "Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay," covering both the forces beneath the surface of the water and stories gathered from its shoreline.

Take the cannonballs fired from Alcatraz by zealous Civil War-era soldiers, eager to test their skills on hapless Angel Island. The projectiles still lurk at the bottom of the bay, occasionally wash ashore with the tides and now surface at the exhibit. Or the Nike missiles - here in the form of an original launch station - which found a home on Angel Island during the Cold War in the 1950s, ready for communist fighter planes that never materialized.

"One of the really fun things about working on this exhibition were some of the things we stumbled across." says Pubols, walking through the show during its installation. "So we went out to Angel Island because we wanted to talk to the state park there about the immigration station story and see what they have in their collections, and they have all kinds of great stuff that we weren't expecting at all."

Presented with the California Department of Transportation as part of the Bay Bridge seismic safety project, "Above and Below" dips not only into the ecology of the area - eye-catching towers of lab bottles house bay contaminants, among them mercury washed down from the Sierra during the Gold Rush - but also the people, such as the blue-collar duck hunters of Drawbridge on Station Island and Muwekma Ohlone tribal members, whose Emeryville Shellmound is re-created here as a 22-foot-high projection.

At the center is the Bay Bridge, represented by the original large handsome clock and "Stop Pay Toll" signage, which were found languishing in a Caltrans lot; a twin of the original bridge troll; archival footage of the bridge's 1936 opening, and the oral histories of those who have maintained it over the years.

In the end, Pubols says, "I know what we left out. I know people will say, 'You left out whaling!'

"But you can't do everything. It wasn't our goal to be comprehensive. It was about picking out the really interesting, fun stories and unpacking them a little bit."